A Few Days of Rest

After one last push to finalize and polish the manuscript for Rabun County, Georgia, Newspapers, 1894 – 1899 (now with an editor), I took a few well-deserved days off. During that time I worked on some long-term projects I’ve kept on the backburner but which I’d like to finish this year. I spent two days in Morrow at the Georgia Department of Archives and History working on a compilation of records related to slaves, something that should be completed by the end of this year.

Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to update my records and resources web site. I had to leave off through the last three months of 2011 due to computer problems, the holidays, and the newspaper book. During my time off, I managed to get the last of the federal census pages for Rabun County back online, as well as a few miscellaneous records. I’m working on the updates as quickly as I can, now that I have a reliable computer again, and hope to begin putting new records online by the end of spring.

Speaking of new records, I took a much-needed trip to the Register of Deeds in Macon Co., NC, and photocopied numerous deeds pertaining to the Nichols and Ledford clans there. I finally narrowed my certification case study down, and will use those deeds, in conjunction with other records, to prove Amy (Nichols) Ledford’s parentage. I’m very close to having the research done and hope to begin writing the first draft of the case study soon. I’ll also be placing at least some of those deeds online, probably through my records and resources web site.

That’s about all the mischief I’ve made over the past week. Monday, I will pick up my regular work, including transcribing Rabun County’s Records of Writ, my next book-length project. The records I hope to include cover from 1836 to about 1858 or perhaps later, depending on how long the text is at that point. Right now, I’m about halfway finished transcribing Book A, and have discovered some fascinating information. Perhaps the most scandalous item concerned two well-known families residing in the Valley area. One family, a husband and wife, sued the son of a slaveholder for slander: the son had told the husband that the wife slept with a slave of the son’s father. Most matters were not as scintillating, but even the mundane items contain wonderful information.